Metric System

Converting units within the metric system is easy, but as a Transportation Engineer working in a State Highway Department’s Encroachment Permit Branch, I find the presently necessary conversions between imperial and metric units to be a costly (time wasting and error prone) mess. Most of the public, contractor’s and even engineers (both in and out of the Department) that I deal with would rather stay with the imperial system.

Our highway system was developed using the imperial system: A 12 foot lane is easier to work with than a 3.66 meter lane. A 36" culvert a neater measurement than a 91.44 cm culvert. Tryng to extend an existing 36" culvert with a 90 cm (which some projects have specified) culvert requires additional work and cost in the field.

Metric plans are to different scales than imperial plans and stationing completely different (Five 20 m in 100 m vs four 25 ft in 100 ft) causing even more confusion.

To add to the confusion, there are “soft” (approximate) conversions between the two systems and “hard” (exact) conversions.

“soft” converting 53.25 PM (post mile) to 85.20 PK (post kilometer) 53.25 x 1.6 is not the same as the “hard” conversion of 85.70 PK . The “soft” conversion in this case is 0.31 mi (almost 1637 feet) off. I also recieve documents refering PM’s as PK or PK’s as PM and if both are shown to they almost never match. There are similar problems when converting stationing,

Add to this that now most highway plans are computer drafted and don’t have the range of line weights and patterns that gave clues to what the lines represent that the old plans do.

I suspect that the US railroads have simular problems converting between the systems.

Yeah i know Donald those conversions can be a pain in the rear end and it took me about 30 years to appreciate much of the benefits of the metric system but i am convinced that it is a better sysem particularly to do with money and temperature and other things. A cubic metre of water is 1 metric tonne and i think it is 1000 litres as well very simple.

What really annoyed me, when they brought it in here was that they introduced measures of length in centimetres, just because it was the one closest to an inch. I worked for a while in SIE Division of Philips Electrical selling electronic weighing and process control instrumentation and we always worked in steps of 1000 ie 1 millimetre, 1 metre, 1 kilometre and even up to megawatts in electricity and this is how it should be.

Well I guess we will never all agree on anything, we can’t even all drive on the same side of the road. I have driven a lot on both sides of the road and I can’t see how one side has any advantage over the other.

Regards

Ian; Kawan Island

Many but not all the problems of converting to metric could have been avoided with proper planning and training. But the decisions on how to do it were made by upper level management, who don’t have to work directly with the consequences of their decisions. I do agree there are many benefits to the metric system

I studied Architecture before for 3 years before finally graduating a couple years later with a degree in Engineering. To me the metric system is not a “human” scale of distance measurement (at least for Western European decended humans". I don’t remember the offical defination of the meter, but I know it has an astronomical base and has no relation to human proportions. I doubt the story that the length the foot was based on the kings actual foot is true, but imperial measurement appears to be a better fit for humans.

I have noticed that many other ethnic groups, who have been shorter in the past, now are often approaching “western european” norms. For instance there are many Hmongs in the area where I live. Many of the teenagers and young adults are as much as 1 ft (30 cm “soft” conversion) taller than their parents. They are catching up in size despite the fact that “western europeans” have also gotten taller.

Ian,

You’ll be right, mate, just don’t head for the middle of the road with that car.[;)][:o)][:D]

This is in reply to everyone.

I think we had a reference to orientals; well I worked for the Chinese for the last 8 years of my working life and they were just the best, more money, better conditions, stock options and they fought among themselves to employ a man in his sixties. This is far better than I could have expected from my own people. My boss, Xing was at least 300 mm or a foot taller than me, so there.

I have travelled a lot around the orient and i am enthralled by it, if you could see my railway you would appreciate this.

Donald I must ask you how many fingers and toes do you have, if you have ten like me you must understand the reality and humaness of the metric system. All your well documented and well founded complaints, are to do with conversion from one system to the other not the system itself.

A few things that may interest you about people worldwide; did you know that females have been steadily reaching pubity earlier for nearly a century and no one knows why. Also it is official, the largest race of people on the planet are the Tongans.

Now getting on to a more important matter, the international price of beer. Because of our drink driving laws I drink at at home alsmost exclusively and a slab of 30 x 375 ml cans costs about US$26.00 and I can get 2 X 4 litre casks of good quality wine for about US $19.00. 375 mlitres is about 0.84 of an imperial pint, what it is in American measures is beyond me. But it is based on the old measure of a “schooner” inroduced a long time ago by the Brtish Navy. This is a pretty big drink that you would buy in a bar in Sydney and the rest of NSW and not in any other part of Australia.

I also have two sets of spanners (wrenches) and its been more than 30 years.

Speed is no problem in metric 110 km on our freeways is easy enough to understand. getting booked for speeding is also fairly easy to understand, irrespective of the system. I have no intention of driving in the mid

Actually I have only 3 toes on my right foot and 4 on my left[:(]

Yes, the metric system is easier because we use a base 10 numbering system. It was purposely designed that way. But not all civilizations have used base 10.

I’m not really against the metric system. I just hate the hastle of having to deal with converting between the imperial system and metric system at work.

Regarding my remark about the “human” scale of distance units. An example here in the USA the ceiling height used in most residential and light commercial architecture is 8’ which I find more elegant and easier to use than 2.4384 m. The length of the units chosen for distance measure in the metric system was not chosen based on human scale. I am not sure that imperial units were either, but they do fit better. Ultimately it doesn’t make any difference.

Incidently I asked a friend who has practiced Architecture in Japan about ceiling heights there. They use 2.4 m or roughly 8’.

Metric system? Fine, just fine… but what I want to know is how come my ONE POUND can of coffee weighs in at 13 ounces? Oh yes, remember Miss Metric? She blinded me with Science !

Well slick all I can say to you is bad luck about your coffee, but don’t you have a department of weights and measures in your country. What you are saying is you bought a 450 gram can of coffee and it only had 360 grams in it. Here in Australia this would be a serious matter and whover sold it to you would be liable. Do they have to declare the weight of the container maybe you just had a heavy can.

Donald at last we are heading in the same direction we too have 2400 mm ceilings 8’ but here in Queensland if you have ceiling fans (which we do) it is wise to go to 2750 mm or 9’, some of our ceilings are actually 3000 mm or 10 ’ because of the high temperatures. So its all not so hard if common sense prevails.

This is my final word on the subject.

Ian…

My remark that the Japanese use 2.4 mm ceilings is probably not relevant, because that probably came about relatively recently due to “western” influence.

I had some other thoughts:

The names of the numbers one …ten, eleven, twelve indicate a base 12 origin.

Many, but not all, the imperial distance measurements fit a base 12 number system.

In commerce the dozen = 12 and 12 dozen = gross are base 12 derived

I found this article on the derivation of “English Common Units” which describes their relation to “human scale” http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/custom.html

1" and 2.54 cm are still the same distance, so the system of measurement untimately doesn’t matter. Because it is a logical easy to use system full conversion to the metric system in the long run good and probably inevitable.

I know Great Britain went metric a long time ago, but when I visited the country a few years ago and stepped on a scale I still got a readout in stones. Now why would a machine I never saw before in my life insult me by comparing me to a pile of rocks?